Tuesday, December 11, 2012

A fundamental disagreement between the Statist and the Anarchist is whether or not a system can be self-organizing. Bear with me, this will take a moment to frame.

To get the definition out of the way up front, by "state" I am not talking about any particular political subdivision. The "state" is the institution with the monopoly on legitimate coercion. When a soldier kills, for example, it is not "murder" because he is acting as an agent of the state. What is robbery if I do it is "tax collection" when performed by an agent of the state. And so on. The act that is otherwise criminal is declared to be legitimate specifically because an agent of the state is doing it. They are "only following orders".

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

These are two words that are generally not taught to students, and certainly not in the government schools, until they have to deal with the generalized concepts in places like law school, or college accounting classes, where it's pointed out that knowing the law, and not following it, is "unethical" or "immoral".

Usually, people first encounter the idea in the context that someone can be prosecuted for "unethical behavior" while in office, while politicians who do not keep campaign promises are considered perfectly normal. This is hypocrisy, and deserves to be addressed.

While most of us think of "rent" only as paying one's landlord for the use of their property, this common use of the term is not as far from the more technical "economic" term as it seems at first. Let it stew for a while, see if it doesn't make sense.